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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42423
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42423
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Let me start with an example, a famous one:

> Then there was the smell of heather crushed and the roughness of the bent stalks under her head and the sun bright on her closed eyes and all his life he would remember the curve of her throat with her head pushed back into the heather roots and her lips that moved smally and by themselves and the fluttering of the lashes on the eyes tight closed against the sun and against everything, and for her everything was red, orange, gold-red from the sun on the closed eyes, and it all was that color, all of it, the filling, the possessing, the having, all of that color, all in a blindness of that color. For him it was a dark passage which led to nowhere, then to nowhere, then again to nowhere, once again to nowhere, always and forever to nowhere, heavy on the elbows in the earth to nowhere, dark, never any end to nowhere, hung on all time always to unknowing nowhere, this time and again for always to nowhere, now not to be borne once again always and to nowhere, now beyond all bearing up, up, up, and into nowhere, suddenly, scaldingly, holdingly all nowhere gone and time absolutely still and they were both there, time having stopped and he felt the earth move out and away from under them. (Ernest Hemingway, _For Whom the Bell Tolls_, chapter 13)

Is it explicit? Yes and no. There is no anatomy here, except for elbows on the earth and eyes closed against the sun. At the same time, we are there throughout. The repetitiveness that @Amadeus mentions, the build-up, the climax. Nothing is skipped. We are given all of the experience of sex, with none of the physical details. You could say we are so much _in_ the moment, that we're not observing it from outside any more - almost, we are experiencing it. In this way, it is not erotic, but it is breathtaking.

Could this scene be skipped? No. It wasn't "just" sex. The earth moved for the characters. They are changed by the experience.

Which brings me to the answer to your question: if a particular sexual encounter is important to who the characters are and how they act, if it changes them or their relationship, if "the earth moves for them", you can't have that happen off-screen. If nothing of importance happens during the sex, if everything of interest is resolved before, if it's only important that it happens, but not what exactly happens or how, the sex is gratuitous and you can skip it. @ArcanistLupus provides excellent examples.

If there's nothing you want to write about _during_ sex, you can skip to the day after, or a shorter skip - to the talk in bed after.

If the sex is important, you don't have to be anatomically explicit. In fact, you probably want to avoid both [IKEA erotica](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IKEAErotica) and [Mills and Boon prose](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MillsAndBoonProse). (The first involves inserting tag A into slot B. The second - giant spears and holy mounds) @Amadeus is right: especially if you're not comfortable writing about the subject, focus more on thoughts and emotions than on organs. If you think about it, it's how the characters feel during/after/because of the sex that's important anyway - not which bits went where. If bits are shown, they should serve to show _that_ - they're not an end in and of themselves. This is not erotica you're writing.

Which is not to say you _can't_ be more explicit. You can, if you like. It's just that your question gives the impression that you'd rather not be.

Original score: 1